Trauma and Recovery

Rating:
Summary: The Word Trauma is Well Defined in this Book
Review: People who have experienced Trauma in a major scale will feel relieved to find out the truth behind closed souls and minds. People who were fortunate not to experience any trauma will learn the true meaning of the word. Adults should at least read once a major book of this impact to understand what is happening in the real world around us. I would recommend the book to anyone who is studying to become a counselor or psychiatrist. You never know what will come, but to be prepared, this is one of the best preparations to Trauma.

Rating:
Summary: Best book on "complex PTSD"
Review: This book begins with an in depth history of the study (and understanding) of trauma and related disorders. Judith Lewis Herman provides aspects of feminist history not seen in other "popular" trauma literature. Judith Herman is a passionate and eloquent writer, and the excerpts written by survivors, that she includes throughout the book, are also poetic and beautifully articulated. She addresses that although trauma literature is now in abundance we must be careful not to abandon the continued study and education of psychological trauma. In addition she explains that there is always a backlash when the "unspeakable" is spoken, and she offers encouragement to remain standing against the repeated abuses of offenders and people who need to maintain their sense of a "just" world.

While reading this book I truly felt understood. So many aspects of the trauma that I experienced (and the after effects) are explained in this book. She weaves together common ground for survivors of incest, rape, torture, war, captivity, and the holocaust. I felt that I was part of a greater community of people, and began to understand that I am not alone. This book is particularly valuable to the understanding of the long term and complex after effects of ongoing, repetitive childhood abuse/captivity (one of the best books on this subject). Other trauma books generally do not devote enough time to the complexity of long term childhood trauma. She explained the distinction between trauma-related symptoms and non-trauma related anxiety disorders, depression, psychosomatic disorders, and personality disorders. Often when this distinction is not recognized by health care providers survivors of trauma are misdiagnosed, given the wrong treatment and prescribed ineffective medications instead of dealing with the underlying trauma. On page 188 she says, "Even PTSD as it is currently defined, does not fit accurately enough [for survivors of prolonged trauma]." She has given a new diagnosis called "complex post-traumatic stress disorder". It was a relief to me because, although I have received great help from books on PTSD, a thorough understanding of long term trauma (beginning in childhood) has often been overlooked. Judith says on page 122, "It is an attempt to learn from survivors, who understand, more profoundly than any investigator, the effects of captivity." She took the words right out of my mouth.

Another aspect of complex PTSD that she addresses is how to cope with the desire to withdraw from the world, and other people. She explains that it is a normal stage of recovery, and gives information on how to reconnect with the world and people. She also says that survivors of captivity often respond in this way: "Before taking any action, she will scan the environment, expecting retaliation."(p.91). In this book she goes into much greater depth on this topic.

The chapter on child abuse also devoted considerable information about how incest survivors are often raped again (multiple times) as teenagers/adult. I finally felt that I was not so alone in the multitude of sexual violation that I have endured over my lifetime. This is very important to address, and is often lacking in books on rape.

In the very first part of the section on recovery she explains that the trauma occurred in a primary relationship and it is through healthy and healing relationships that the survivor can ultimately heal. I think this is very important to discuss since so many survivors of trauma feel that they can not rely upon anyone in any way (even in a mutual, equal, and healthy interaction).

I highly recommend this book to survivors (and pro-survivors) of all kinds of trauma, and to all health care and mental health workers. If everyone read this book we would live in a very different world. One of the best options I have found for recovery is simply reading about trauma and it's effects upon the nervous system. By understanding which behaviors of mine are trauma related and what "normal" experience is for a person that has not been traumatized I know what my goals and hopes for the future can be. Also, through understanding my own reactions to trauma, I also began to understand the reactions of other survivors that I have encountered when events evoked an experiential memory of the trauma they endured.

Rating:
Summary: Packed with research and real world truth
Review: This book comes across like a textbook in places - but it is probably the most comforting and most worn book in my collection. This is a great resource for anyone who is working through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - or who loves someone who is. I found great comfort in her use of the research that has been done to date on this disorder. This book delves into all communities of PTSD that have been researched to date - this includes war veterans, rape victims, disaster survivors, etc. It is fascinating to see the similarities and the differences between these groups and the various manifestations of PTSD among them. It also offers some good ideas and advice for progressing through recovery.

I learned much about myself as I read this book. Well worth the cost and time to read it - I will always have it in my library - and refer to it often.

Rating:
Summary: A Strong Book With A Limited Perspective
Review: This book is brilliant - but short-sighted. From the introduction Judith Herman provides a clear paradigm for understanding trauma and recovery: "The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma." What she fails to understand is how this applies to her - and those like her...that is, everyone.

The trauma Judith Herman defines is only the extreme echelon of trauma - the tip of the iceberg that rises into her conscious view. Although she rightly and masterfully connects the traumas - and posttraumatic reactions - experienced by Holocaust survivors, rape victims, children in severely abusive homes, combat veterans, and domestically abused women, because of her own denial she fails to link the traumas in these categories to the traumas experienced by the other 99% of humanity: the inflicted traumas that fly under the radar in every family around the world. Thus, if you are one of the 99% whose unresolved traumas don't fit into her extreme categories (i.e. if you are alive, don't fit into her categories, and are not yet fully enlightened), this book's main value for you will be through metaphor - if, that is, you can translate the extreme cases and thereby be able to relate them to your own situation.

Traumas are inflicted on children almost ubiquitously on subtle, chronic levels by those with the greatest emotional power to mold them - their parents. Traumas occur whenever a child's true self is not witnessed in full. If a child were witnessed in full, he would have no need to develop an unconscious mind to protect himself from the knowledge of the horror he has experienced. But Judith Herman - who idealizingly dedicates this work to her mother, and is a mother herself - fails to grip this. She mistakenly views herself as outside the cycle of victim and perpetrator. This lack of insight into herself is at the root of why she has so little understanding of the mindset and motivation of the perpetrator.

Parents who are not fully conscious - that is, parents in denial of any degree of their own buried, unresolved traumas - inevitably traumatize their children without even realizing they are doing it, and thus can take no responsibility for it. Even in the mildest cases this is emotionally devastating for children, but because so few witness what is really going on and thus call it by its rightful name - including the writer of this standard book on trauma - it goes unacknowledged, and thus is considered normal.

We understand why the Vietnam combat vet drinks himself into oblivion, but do we understand why the child in the normal family compulsively overeats or wets the bed or sucks his thumb or hates his younger brother? We understand why the rape victim later becomes phobic of sex with her consensual partners, but can we fathom the normal mother's twisted motives for having children? We understand why the Holocaust survivor has persistent, horrible nightmares about Auschwitz, but do we put the correct face on the bogeyman in the dreams of the normal, middle class child?

The norm is still very, very sick. Yet Judith Herman, who lives in the thick of it and writes for those who think within the box, has not figured that out. Her book is beautiful, but it misses the deeper point.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, clear, well written book, important to the field
Review: This is an excellent book. It presents material on trauma and treatment in a very clear, readible manner. I literally read it over a three day period (but found that I had to put it down for a couple days after reading the 1st half). It was difficult to read about the traumas that people have experienced. Reading about the solutions gave me hope for individuals who have personality disorders as a result of trauma. This is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: A political and very necessary book.
Review: This is not your usual trauma recovery book. Most books on healing explain symptoms, offer exercises, and provide illuminating case histories. Judith Herman does all this, but she goes beyond just focusing on healing oneself in isolation. We are social animals, and must live within our culture. Thus, how our culture regards trauma and traumatized people is very important to those trying to become reintegrated into society after massive psychic shock. Dr. Herman explains our modern Western culture's attitudes toward trauma and the traumatized, gives a fascinating and pertinent history of how those attitudes have changed throughout the past century, and shows how those attitudes affect how survivors recover.

Dr. Herman sets forth most of this broader cultural history in Part 1, Chapter 1, "A Forgotten History." She begins with the female hysteria patients of 19th Century Europe, and ends up with the Vietnam veterans' movement to demand treatment for battle induced post-traumatic stress. The veterans' work bore fruit. In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association included "post-traumatic stress disorder" in its official manual of mental disorders. This paved the way in the 1980s for victims of rape, childhood abuse, and domestic violence to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Part of the history Herman sets forth explores why people tend to shun and try to silence trauma survivors. She writes, "It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering."

I would guess that most people recovering from trauma have experienced the dynamic of those around them "taking the side of the perpetrator." Without understanding why they are doing so only compounds the suffering the survivor experiences, and intensifies the feeling that one is tainted, bad, or defective for having been traumatized in the first place. In exploring the cultural dynamics of collective repression and denial, Herman does a great service to those who must heal and re-enter a culture which can sometimes be seen to be in league with the perpetrators in our world.

The remainder of Part 1 deals with the types of abuse and the symptoms which follow. This information can be found in other books, but here it is set in a larger cultural context which helps the reader to make more sense out of the symptoms.

Part 2 describes the stages of recovery. This information is very concrete, very helpful, and hopeful as well. Dr. Herman outlines three main stages; they are: establishing safety, remembering and integrating one's story, and re-integrating oneself back into the social world.

This book is probably the most helpful book I have read on trauma recovery in 20 years. Dr. Herman's idea to explore the social matrix in which healing occurs is brilliant. After all, we are all connected. We cannot heal ourselves without making some sort of peace with the culture around us. We cannot always change the attitudes of those around us, but we can learn to understand, and thus approach those who cannot comprehend our reality with at least some measure of forgiveness and compassion.

Rating:
Summary: Multipurpose
Review: This multipurpose and truth telling detailed book deals with all forms of abuse and shows us, the reader that in the long run it is all abuse no matter the type and does alter our views on life.
Along with this book I would like to mantion a couple of other good books: Nightmares Echo and all of the David Pelzer Books

Rating:
Summary: Good for what it is, but not the best thing to read
Review: This really is a fine book, and perhaps I'm being ungenerous to giveit three stars, but I think the book has limitations and isn't reallythe best thing to read for someone who has limited time.

Fourlimitations come to mind. First, the book provides limited coverageto childhood trauma, focusing more heavily on adult experiences oftrauma. There's nothing wrong with giving strong coverage to adulttrauma, but my impression is that most traumatized individualsexperienced their trauma as children, not adults. Second, I thinkthat Herman's feminism intrudes itself inappropriately at severalpoints and hurts her presentation. Third, although the book providesdetailed coverage of many areas, I think it lacks a certain amount oftheoretical depth--sometimes striking me as more a catalogue than adeep integration of the subject. For example (if I recall; it's beena while since I read the book), the book does not clearly discuss oreven speculate on the possible cause-effect links between dissociationand repetition. It talks about both, but doesn't tie themtogether.... Fourth--this really is more a personal reaction lessthan a "limitation"--I found the book dry reading.

Thesethings said, the book really is fine, and I learned from reading it.But if a person is interested in *childhood* trauma, there are booksthat I think should be read first. These include the following: (a.)Books by Alice Miller, including Drama of the Gifted Child [Read theoriginal version, which has a preface called "Vantage Point1990," not the one rewritten during the 90's] followed byBanished Knowledge, (b.) Making Sense of Suffering by KonradStettbacher, (c.) Too Scared to Cry by Lenore Terr, (d.) Soul Murderby Morton Schatzman (not the better-known book of the same title byLeonard Schengold); Schatzman's book is out of print but availablefrom public libraries, (e.) Betrayal Trauma by Jennifer Freyd, and(f.) for those looking for simpler but theoretically solid andpractical works, Toxic Parents by Susan Forward and Reclaiming YourLife by Jean Jenson.

Rating:
Summary: A primary resource
Review: This very readable book moves through the chapters smoothly and swiftly, telling an accurate story about the after effects of trauma in a way that anyone can understand and relate to. While there continue to be nay sayers to this day who deny that PTSD even exists, Herman makes the case that PTSD has been around for a long, long time and can be found not only in situations dismissed as "feminist," but in war heroes as well. While there is much more to be told about the psychology of trauma and its after effects, what we know about how it works can be very important information when considering how it can be *used* by those whose goals *are* those very after effects. I would not be surprised if the very people who deny that such a thing as PTSD exists are the ones who are using it to meet their own ends. As I said, there is much to the story of trauma and its uses. This book lays a strong foundation for the investigation of what comes next. It is one of my primary resources.

Rating:
Summary: The First Step in Recovering
Review: This was one of the first books my psychiatrist suggested I read, and I've by now given several copies to friends. My PTSD became full blown when, 9 months after my car accident I was still trying to recover from what had been a misdiagnosed broken neck. I'm fortunate to have found a skilled therapist who values Dr. Herman's work and who recognized in me signs and symptoms of older betrayals. This is an important work.